The Daily News

1  Been enjoying writing the DN these past few weeks. Keep in mind that AOL tos-ed me a few weeks ago with the explanation that I was sending bulk junk mail to people.

2  I pleaded innocent. But I was worried that they might have continued taking all my privileges and stuff away but it seems we're still going pretty strong.

3  I also had to battle a computer that was freezing all the time, and a subsequent laptop that jumped words all over the page.

4  Last year I couldn't even bring in new pictures.

5  Well, despite all that, the DN has remained. Feels good, lemme tellya.

6  Sorta like an old friend.

7  I just like it.

8  I might remind you that half the time I don't even remember what I wrote the previous day. I don't exaggerate when I say this is more along the lines of automatic writing than any original thought coming out of any sort of effort by me.

9  I just throw out a sort of coffehouse bit each day and sometimes enjoy playing around with it, sort of the same way people do crossword puzzles.

10  Believe it or not it takes from one to three hours to get it from inception to mailing.

11  Don't know why. Can't really explain it.

12  Just does.

13  Anyway I just thought I'd celebrate the fun way the DN survived. I was just goofing on that. Understand that it has nothing to do with me, or my efforts, or anything. I honestly might as well be fishin'. It's that kick back.

14  I write first and chase down pics later.

15  I try to keep things that really irk me outta this.

16  Like I had to deal with a lunkhead last night.

17  No shortage.

18  I told him he was a lunkhead, but he was too stubborn to listen.

19  So he walked away and headed back to Lunkheadville.

20  Happens to everyone, almost every day.

21  You don't really need to bother knowing anything more.

22  Same lunkhead you had to deal with. Different face.

23  He probably thought I was the lunkhead.

24  So it goes.

25  Ain't that just life?

26  Well, time to doze off.

27   Time for you to finish your coffee and get off yer fundament and do whatever it is you do. I gotta do that too.

28  Fun goofin' with you today though.

29  Just live life, love life today. Don't let the lunkheads getcha down.

30  See ya again.

32  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1  One thing that is consistently fun about doin' the DN is having a teevee blaring in the background whenever I write.

2  Sort of peaceful in a funny sort of way.

3  When I was but a wee lad, I used to go to bed early and would always listen to the teevee in the other room. It was always a nice sound, sort of like everybody is home, warm and safe. Perry Mason re-runs. Or was it the original? Or did they...

4  Yes they did have teevee back then.

5  I just thought I'd head that one off.

6  I once said that to a kid,"Yes we did have teevee back then..." which of course I followed immediately with a VERY sincere: "I was alive when everyone was black and white."

7  Sadly the guy took the time to think, looked up in an utterly confused fashion, and said in all sincerity, "For reals?"

8  Yeah dude. For reals.

9   Yeesh.

10  Moving on: Huh? This just in: Wayne Newton was just voted to stay on Dancing With the Stars. America must be stunned. This will be all over the Internet within milliseconds. It will be debated on My Space. Students in universities will be marching in the streets. I swear to you.

11  Ah, the grand irony of finding teevee comforting is that stupidity flies through the room like Halloween wraiths.

12  Maybe that's one of the perks of having a degree. I no longer have to study, nor even to think for that matter.

13  Anyway Wayne is just a woodchuck with good luck.

14  Moving on, Part the Second:  I love being alive. I mean that. I've seen my share of people upping and leaving this world, including my sister's amazing dog Clarissa who just left all of us this past weekend. So sad.

15  There was a pooch.

16  That's been happening with a little too much regularity the past three years. Good friends. Relatives. Pets. Celebs. It gets to a person after a while.

17  The only good that comes out of it is that it always seems to put the rest of everything into its proper perspective.

18  Yesterday I got a complaint that my calendar left all the Mondays out of January.

19  At first I stood astounded. Then I became defensive. With the feeling that someone was standing over me with a ruler, I very hesitatingly looked through my 2008 calendar. I take pride in keeping after that thing, yet there it was staring me right in the face

20  No Mondays in January.

21  Sounds like some title of a Chicken Soup story you'd find in Barnes and Noble.

22  The funny thing is that the e-mail telling me about my mistake had this as the subject: "Angry Parent".

23  A January without Mondays? Where's the problem?

24  Ya gotta love it.

25  There must be a little bit more to life than getting angry at some Activities schlep who made a mistake.

26  To me, my mistake was that it shoulda been Tuesdays.

27  Fear not. I weathered that storm, and the sitcheeashun should right itself sometime in the next three months.

28  Meanwhile, I'm gonna wake up, look at the sunrise this morning, smile.

29  The first rainbow I see on a Monday morning in January will be Clarissa smiling down on everyone, her tail knocking a few clouds crooked as she once again brings joy into our hearts.

30  So long old girl. First good cry I've had all year.

31  And Gayle, I love you sis.

32  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington

   The Daily News

1  Hmmm. You know how you learn stuff when you're little and then you forget it later?

2  I get into that concept all the time. It seems the older and wiser we purportedly get, the less and less we remember what we forgot.

3  I'm thinkin' that eventually everything I ever learned will become irrelevant anyway.

4  I saw this thing called Shift Happens last week and it was this huge research thingy about how ridiculously useless and obsolete everything we are learning is.

5  It was all about how technology is here now and gone in an instant, and about how much more access we have to instant knowledge than we had even fifty years ago.

6  To many out there, this is alarming. Teachers who never wanted to use computers are hiding in closets with their abacuses and slide rules. Remember blackboards? Remember green boards? Within five years I'll be saying, "Remember white boards?"

7  Moving on: I went to Starbuck's last night with my daughter, the very sensational and beautiful Caitlin. We started goofing on things, and then we saw a dead possum.

8  Well, we THOUGHT he was dead. He was good.

9  She turned to me and said, "Just what IS the difference between a possum, and an opossum? I always tell people that the opossum is bigger and native to North America. Nobody's gonna check anyway!"

10  Ya gotta love it.

11  I told her that the main difference is that an opossum is Irish.

12  She got it.

13  Dumb.

14  Moving on: Remember my rant last week about Across the Universe? Last night I was watching teevee and this commercial came on with the Beatles' Hello, Good-bye in it. It seemed to have a toilet theme, which somehow worked. It turns out it's a commercial for Target. I really like the commercial.

15  It came on in the middle of The Bachelor.  That's that sexist show that has all those bimbos chasing afer that goober. I STILL don't get it,  but I did keep glancing over the top of my laptop utterly flabbergasted that something THAT stupid is being watched by millions.

16  I kept shouting at the television, and at the room about how tasteless, unclassy, shallow, sexist and vile the show is.

17  From the very beginning to the very end I kept asking the room, "WHO WATCHES THIS STUFF?" followed by choruses of, "Yeah, it's so bad..." "This is ridiculous!" "WHY ARE WE EVEN WATCHING THIS CRAP?"

18  The entire room proceeded to get disgusted all the way until the end.

19  I can't figure it out. How does it stay on the air?  ;  )  <----------sideways winky guy 
                                                                                            that nobody uses anymore.

20  Moving on, Part deux: For those of you into something a bit more edifying, you might turn off your teevee and head out to Mission City Coffee Roasting Company tonight to enjoy the San Jose 48 Hour Film Project, in association with Thriving Artists presentation of three recent 48 Hour Films, TONIGHT from 7:30-9:30. 2221 The Alameda, Santa Clara CA. I got an e-mail night before last from Angie Higgins and I thought I'd send out a shout for that one. 

21  Well, that's fine for a Tuesday. 

22  And always remember, if there were no Tuesdays, it would be Wednesday already.

23  Have a beautiful day.

24  Peace.

~H~

http://www.xanga.com/bharrington